Voiced by a local conservation officer, this episode explores one of the largest barrier reefs in the world, which stretches for nearly a thousand miles in the Caribbean Sea. Working together with local scientists and conservation workers, the Golden Shadow team documents the reefs in the Bahamas and probes their ability to cope with the perils of climate change.

The people of the Cook Islands have created one of the world’s largest marine parks, and now they’re working together to figure out what that means to a bevy of conflicting interests, from fishermen to miners. The scientists aboard the “Golden Shadow” lend their expertise, exploring reefs at a far-flung island and helping the residents map their resources.

Situated at the confluence of major currents, the Galapagos Islands are not tropical – in fact they are cold. Reefs were only discovered here in 1975. With the help of a local guide, the team battles rough seas and cold water. They discover some flourishing reefs at Darwin Island and, further south, a natural laboratory to test the future of what reefs might expect in just a few decades.

GLOBAL REEF EXPEDITION follows an international team of scientists as they study six of the most remote coral reefs on earth. Journeying to unexplored locations as well as to those more well-known, the team is on a mission to find out how coral reefs are faring. Along the way they face challenges and make new discoveries about life in our oceans.
During their five year journey onboard the researc...

The team settles in for a month on the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef in the world. One scientist is studying sharks and, in a flashback we visit French Polynesia where sharks abound and the team films their natural feeding behaviors for the first time ever. Back on the GBR, the scientists explore the northern reef, which until recently was the healthiest part. The program concludes with new...

The collision zone of the massive Indian and Asian tectonic plates is one of the most seismically active places on Earth. These plates trace an arc beneath the Himalaya Mountains and run south below the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, an area that is inhibited by billions of people. This program follows earth scientists working in seven countries who are urgently investigating this high-risk zone.

The scientific team aboard the “Golden Shadow” visits the Chagos Archipelago, a tropical paradise with some of the healthiest coral reefs on the planet. They come to study reefs seemingly untouched by man, but instead become witnesses to a bleaching incident that transforms the reefs right before their eyes. Before they leave, they also discover rays of hope in little sprigs of coral that fight on...

These reefs, once the most famous in the world, are now struggling just to survive. Local fishermen have to work much harder to make a living. They team up with conservationists, the Jamaican government, and “Golden Shadow” scientists to set up a fishing sanctuary, hoping to restore their endangered fishery.

Four and a half billion years ago, how did life emerge on Earth? Robert Hazen advances a startling idea—that the rocks on Earth were not only essential to jump-starting life, but then, as microbes flourished and took over the biosphere, life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we rely upon today. NOVA reveals how the story of life on Earth is fundamentally interwoven with the epic, unfolding...

Take a global tour in four themed episodes, answering the simplest questions about the complex forces that shape our planet. Why is water blue? How can a shape defy gravity? Why do bees make hexagonal honeycombs? And how do these things affect our own lives? Discover what lies beneath Earth's startling beauty as we reveal the secrets of our cosmos and the natural forces that govern everything with...